Although its author is unknown, this work has been attributed
to James Davies, the navigator of Raleigh Gilbert’s ship, the
Mary and John.

Popham’s Expedition to Maine, 1607-1608

On April 10, 1606, James I signed a charter for two colonies,
one in the northern part of Virginia and the other in the south.
The promoters of the northern colony included Sir Fernando
Gorges and Sir John Popham. In May 1607, the investment group
sent out two ships, the Gift of God and the Mary and
John, under the command of Popham’s son George. They carried
a total of about 120 settlers, including gentlemen, soldiers,
craftsmen, and farmers. They hoped to establish a settlement that
would profit from trade with the Native Americans and exploit
the wealth of America’s natural resources, particularly through
the discovery of precious metals such as the Spanish had found
in the south.

When George Popham sailed in 1607 to settle the Sagadahoc
colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River, he first landed at
Monhegan Island. Leaving Monhegan, he sailed south, first
landing at New Harbor, and ultimately choosing a site at the
mouth of the Kennebec, east across the bay from present-day
Portland, Maine. Here the colonists built a fort, houses, a
stockade, and a storehouse. An alliance with local Wawenoc,
Canibas and Arosaguntacook Indians soon deteriorated and
eventually resulted in an attack on the colonists that caused
thirteen deaths. A particularly severe winter set in early, food supplies
gave out, the colony’s sponsor in England passed away, the site
of the little settlement was exposed to brutal winter winds, and
George Popham himself died on February 5, 1608. When a supply
ship finally arrived the following June, the colonists learned
that Gilbert’s older brother had also died, leaving him to head
the family. He decided to return to England to tend to his
affairs and all the other colonists, reluctant to face another
severe winter without their leader, joined him.

Until this document resurfaced in 1875, most scholars
believed that the charter for a northern colony had never been
acted upon and that the Pilgrims at Plymouth, who arrived
thirteen years later, were the first English colonists in New
England (see AJ-025). Archeological evidence has settled the
debate. While the venture did not prove to be permanent, the
Popham Colony’s experiences likely provided valuable information
for colonists who later settled in New England.

Document Note

The manuscript of the Relation of a Voyage to Sagadahoc
was discovered in 1875 in the library of Lambeth Palace London,
and was first printed in 1880 by John Wilson and Son, University
Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since the Lambeth manuscript
was mutilated, leaving the narrative unfinished, in 1892 the
Gorges Society added an end section from an earlier copy that
appears in William Strachey’s Historie of Travaile into
Virginia Britannia (London, 1612). They then published the
resulting composite under the title The Sagadahoc Colony.

Other Internet and Reference Sources

An archeology project called the Popham Field School, run by
the Friends of the Maine State Museum, maintains a website with
information on the colony, and on the discoveries that
archeologists are making at the site. See http://www.pophamcolony.org

Ivor, Noël Hume. “Message from Maine: Two Virginias and One
Mystery Map,” Colonial Williamsburg 22:4 (Winter
2000-01): 67-72; and Baker, Emerson W., et. al., eds.
American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture, and Cartography in
the Land of Norumbega. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1994) are two modern scholarly treatments of these
events.